The Notion Of Duality Of The Human Soul In William Blake’s Songs Of Innocence And Experience

Tembong Denis Fonge

Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience generally subscribe to the main stream appreciation that they present the reader with two states of the human condition - the pastoral, pure and natural world of lambs and blossoms on the one hand, and the world of experience characterized by exploitation, cruelty, conflict and hypocritical humility on the other hand. However, Blake’s songs communicate experiences that go beyond the ordinary, to demonstrate that the human soul essentially, is like a two sided coin. This makes it difficult to give the poems simplistic treatment as may be suggested by the simplicity of language and form of the songs. On this score, I strongly identify with Shadrack Ambansom’s opinion that “it would therefore be myopic to consider Blake as a simple poet… indeed no poet who was capable of presenting penetrating studies of the devious and treacherous human heart as ‘The Human Abstract’, and ‘A Poison Tree’ etc can be called simple” (24). Blake, like Marlowe in Dr. Faustus, exhibits in his Songs of Innocence and Experience that the human soul has a dual nature, essentially made up of both the good and evil phases. Songs of Innocence for example, do not only represent the innocence of the human soul at its early stage of life called childhood, but also describe the spiritual attachment of the soul to its creator. Blake attaches extreme importance and gives orthodox treatment to this divine connection between the creator and his creation. In the same vein, Northrop Frye thinks “when we say that the goal of human work can only be accomplished in eternity” (58) it means that the cot that binds man to his creator goes beyond the physical. On the other hand, Songs of experience represent the inherent evil side of the soul. The human spirit, Blake seems to suggest, possesses this dual nature of the good and evil from inception or creation. Therefore the ability to do good or evil is inherently present in man and only needs to be tickled by favourable factors or circumstances to give the required expectations. In this, Blake seems to be saying that good and evil complementarily exist in the heart of man, separated only by a thin layer. It is important to note that the lasting consequence of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden establishes the foundation of evil in the soul. The bible confirms this where it says “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom. 5.12). This reveals the soul as having dual character - that of possessing the capacity to do good and evil. Blake explores this knowledge of the genesis of creation to project the two sides of the individual represented by innocence and experience. Innocence echoes the original life of man before the fall while experience echoes the adulterated life after the fall. “The Divine Image” for example, illustrates how the poet uses personification to dramatize Christ's mediation between God and Man. Beginning with abstract qualities (the four virtues of Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love), the poet makes these abstractions the object of human prayer and piety. The poem does not explicitly mention Christ, but the four virtues that Blake assigns alternately to man and God are the ones conventionally associated with Jesus. Because Christ was both God and man, he becomes the vehicle for Blake's mediation between the two. From this perspective therefore, Blake reveals the very conception of the human being by his creator, by re-echoing the Biblical assertion that God created man in His image. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” (Gen. 1:26). If man was made in God’s image, then the attributes of God - mercy, pity, peace and love are possessed by man and so constitute part of human nature. In the same light, Blake...

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...Blake’s use of the pastoral in Songs of Innocence and Experience
Put simply, Blake’sSongs of Innocence and Experience juxtapose the innocent pastoral world of childhood against an adult world of corruption and repression. The collection as a whole, by means of paired poems in Innocence and Experience (The Lamb, The Tyger; The Ecchoing Green, The Garden of Love/London; The Nurse’s Song (I and E); Introduction (I and E); The Chimney sweeper (I and E), etc) explores the value and limitations of two different perspectives of the world. The same situation or problem is seen through the eyes or perspective of Innocence first, then Experience. Blake stands outside Innocence and Experience, in a distanced position from which he recognises and attempts to correct the fallacies of both perspectives. He uses the pastoral, in many songs, to attack oppressive and destructive authority (Church, King, parents, adult figures), restrictive morality, sexual repression, established religion – the Established Church, social inequality, militarism.
The pastoral is a literary style that presents an idealised and artificial picture of rural life, the naturalness and innocence of which is seen in contrast with the corruption and artificiality of city and...

...Blake'sSongs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
This term has provided me with many valuable tools that help me understand people who are different from myself. Through many of the authors I learned about new cultures and was presented with new ideas. As a result of this new exposure, I feel that these authors contributed a positive experience in studying Western world literature.
One author that has influenced this positive experience was William Blake. WilliamBlake'sSongs of Innocence and Songs of Experience were great literary examples that describe the conflict between innocence and experience. In "The Lamb" of Songs of Innocence, Blake presents someone who receives an answer to his question and believes the answer without reservation. "Little Lamb who made thee...Little Lamb I'll tell thee/He is called by thy name/For he calls himself a Lamb" (870). "The Lamb" describes someone with a child-like faith that does not question many things, but simply believes what is presented to him by faith. In Songs of Experience's contrasting piece, "The Tyger," Blake describes someone who is much more confused than this child-like figure in "The Lamb." This character seems to question everything and...

...Blake's dialectic is to be found everywhere in the Songs of Innocence and Experience - night and day, winter and spring, wilderness and Eden, etc. As Mitchell writes (1989:46), ‘dialogue and dialectic of contraries constitute the master code of Blake's text’. Bass (1970:209) adds, ‘The total effect of Innocence and Experience is one of balanced opposites, each fulfilling and completing the other’. Moreover, according to John Beer, the ‘contrary states’ of the humansoul are dialectic in themselves. Blake intended for his reader to come into a space where he/she could encounter the two contraries in dialogue, within the imagination, and come to a sense of resolution.
The most important contrary relationship in the Blake’sSongs of Innocence and Experience (1794), of course, is that between Innocence and Experience. For Blake, as a quick glance of the Songs will show, Innocence was largely associated with childhood, and Experience with adulthood; but, as a more methodical analysis will show, these associations are not absolute, for instance, while such poems as ‘The Lamb’ represent a meek virtue, poems like ‘The Tyger’ exhibit opposing, darker forces.
As Marsh (2001:30) notes, ‘It would be wrong to think of...

...“The Chimney Sweeper” Songs of Innocence &amp; Experience analysis with, William Blake
In 1794 WilliamBlake’s work was known and published as a collection of poems that were put together as one book called Songs of innocence &amp; Songs of Experience. In the collection Blake titles a poem, “The Chimney Sweeper”, and this one is viewed in two ways:Innocence and experience. In the book of innocence Blake shows how poor innocent children are being abused and mistreated during this time era. In Songs of innocence, “The Chimney Sweeper,” is about the way childhood youth is destroyed, taken away or ruined by selfish mean-spirited adults. Innocence to Blake was in a way not even in existence. He always believed that the world of one’s existence was always tainted by experience, from then on poisoned by the surroundings. “And so he was quiet; and that very night, As Tom was-a-sleeping, he had such a sight, - That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned and Jack, were all of them locked up in coffins of Black. (Line9-12) This part of the poem portrays the children who actually had their poor youthful more like youth-less lives lost due to harsh conditions that had to endure of their daily job during this time era. “Then naked and white, all their...

...﻿
Trace how Blake’s thought develops from his poem ‘The Lamb’ and ‘The Tyger’ together-
“I have no name:
I am but two days old.”
What shall I call thee?
“I happy am,
Joy is my name.”
Sweet Joy befall thee!” ’
The good character as well as the bad abstractions such as virtues and vices is framed up in symbols to elaborate their suggestiveness and implications. Blake’s symbology is too large and complex to be given in brief. His symbols help to express his visions which may be obscure to a common reader. Blake says: “Allegory is addressed to the intellectual powers, while it is altogether hidden from the corporeal. Understanding is my definition of the Most Sublime Poetry.” From this it is clear that in his view poetry is concerned with something else than the phenomenal world and that the only means of expressing it is through what he calls ‘allegory’. For Blake allegory is a system of symbols which presents events in a spiritual world.
“The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble Sheep a threatening horn;
White the Lily white shall in love delight,
Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.”
Blake imagined himself under spiritual influences. He saw various forms and heard the voices of angels, fairies, kings of the past and even God; the past and future were before him and he heard in imagination, even the awful voice which called on Adam amongst the trees of the garden. In this...

...﻿William Blake: Printer, Poet, and Political Commentator?
Carl Hiaasen, a satire-loving journalist, believes strongly in that genre of literature saying, “Good satire comes from anger. It comes from a sense of injustice, that there are wrongs in the world that need to be fixed. And what better place to get that well of venom and outrage boiling than a newsroom, because you’re on the front lines.” These veiled criticisms have the power to bring to light, for all to see, inequality that exists in the world and begin a conversation of change. William Blake had the idea to leverage his printing business (instead of a newsroom) and experience as a poet to begin that conversation with his collection of poems entitled Songs of Innocence. Focusing on “The Little Black Boy,” “Holy Thursday,” and “The Chimney Sweeper” satire is his weapon against the vastly unequal social scene in England around the turn of the 18th century.
In “The Little Black Boy,” Blake attacks two main social injustices he believes to be a problem, racial discrimination and religion used as a tool to control and cope with circumstance. Right away, in the first stanza, the reader is introduced to this contrasting imagery, “White as an angel is the English child, / But I am black as if bereav’d of light,” (The Little Black Boy, 3-4) hinting that innately the black man is evil and therefore is lesser than the white man. He is going to have...

...April 21, 2012
William Blake in contrast of
Songs of Innocence and of ExperienceWilliam Blake, an engraver, exemplified his passion for children through his many poems. Blake lived in London most of his life and many fellow literati viewed him as eccentric. He claimed to have interactions with angels and prophets, which had a great influence on his outlook of life. Blake believed all prominent entities, those being church, state, and government had become sick with greed and hatred; and Christianity had somehow failed. According to Jeffery Bell in Industrialization and Imperialism, 1800 – 1914 “Blake’s simple language and use of vernacular spoke to the rebellion against established order and authority. Blake’s reputation seems to be firmly established in the counterculture as a prophet, visionary, and exemplar. Critics and scholars have also placed him as perhaps the first poet of the Romantic movement as its themes and concerns developed in England”(38). Blake, happily married to Catherine Boucher nearly 45 years, never had any children; yet children are an eminent theme throughout many of his poems. Blake’s compassion for children allowed him to see the world through the innocence of the young, which inspired the poems of Songs of Innocence. This same passion prompted the poems of Songs of...

...English 103
October 3, 2013
A Nurse’s Songs: Through Innocence and ExperienceWilliamBlake’s two poems that are both entitled “Nurse’s Song” demonstrate opposing
perspectives of a nurse toward the innocence of the children she is caring. In “Songs of
Innocence”, the rhyming pairs of the poem suggest that the nurse is untroubled as she watches
the children’s enjoyment while its syntax shows that she advocates or is in favor of the joy that
their innocence brings them. In “Songs of Experience”, however, the rhyming pairs suggest that
the nurse is bothered by the same happiness that the children are experiencing that she would
want them to lose their innocence and be more aware of reality. It is also noticeable in the
poem’s syntax that she views their joy as a waste of their time as she recollects her own
childhood.
The rhyming pairs of the two poems essentially demonstrate what the nurse feels towards
the children’s play on the hill and how she should respond to this merriment. For instance, in
“Songs of Innocence”, the rhyming words “hill” (page 53, line 2) and “still” (page 53, line 4)
show a connection between elevation or ascent and the sense of tranquility or stability. This...

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